All theists NEED to know, is that it's unknown, at this time. No reason to make s**t up.

Once they do that, they won't be theists any more? Is that not what happened to you?

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

The big bang theory is a model of how the universe expanded from a potential singularity. The model is used in conjuction with scientific observations to reach a conclusion on how the universe could have formed.

question is formed from what? what existed to form If it wasn't this universe, when did it start either time is eternal or this formed out of nothing at some point ,, inescapable conclusion

But anything before the Big Bang scientists have nothing to go on - they don't claim that the big bang created matter and energy, rather just that the Big Bang was responsible for the Universe as we know it.

Anything before that, well we don't know nor do we have anything to form scientific theory of anything before. Always remember theory is just theory and scientists recognise that: know one knows the big bang to be fact, likewise with any other theory to the origins of the universe as we know it.

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“It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet” - Miyamoto MusashiWarning: I occassionally forget to proofread my posts to spot typos or to spot poor editing.

...Irrelevant. it does not say 'something came from nothing' and simply presents a situation where we can explain things up to a point then we inevitably say 'we dont know'. At no time or point was the assertion,"Something came from nothing" ever made.

True. I hope I had not really implied it did.

I was only asserting that philosophers look at the big bang and say, "wtf". How? Why? But that they find themselves asking the same questions which are counter intuitive. Science asserts the singularity thing which actually says we "inherently" can never know!!!1) something ALWAYS existed. We find this counter intuitive but it is a more "logical" alternative than2) something came from "nothing".Curiously, as Dawkins pointed out, God does not by you anything either philosophically since God would also be "something".

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From that point of view, big bang, god theory, whatever all the same. Don't make sense.

Except, the big bang theory is an actual testable and falsifiable hypothesis ( before it became scientific 'theory' ).

True.

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God, isn't even a testable hypothesis much less theory. They are not comparable in any form of claiming to 'have knowledge', but more importantly this has nothing to do with demonstrating that the big bang theory states,"Something came from nothing."

I like the irony. Scientists actually qualify everything they say whereas religious people assert "truth" without a "shade of doubt" in utter absence of evidence.

Anyway, nice points.

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

Well, obviously there is lots of evidence showing it happened but all the same, its really BIZARE. Truth is indeed, apparently stranger than fiction.

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

I have heard of many theories behind the big bang, some involving an inclusion of a point, a singularity.A singularity is not technically "nothing" is it?I just find it difficult to imagine, A singularity, gaining its Dimensional shape.

I have also heard of "Colliding Universe's"And that that could have been the start to the "Big Bang"This can be visualised by asserting that our universe and others are sheets of "space-time" floating through a higher dimensional universe.When two of these membranes collided, the "Big Bang" was started.There are a number of problems I have with this.- If the universe, at the point of collision, was nothing, or had no dimensional value, then what was the "collision"?- Space-time is conceived as a 2dimensional membrane, (forgetting it's contents as 4-dimensional).If 2 completely width-less objects collide, the point of the collision would be a point, a singularity, how could you measure effectively in the mesh of this outer-dimensional universe, where about the collision took place?

Yet I am not a genius, maybe there are a few who can hazard a few guesses *hint*

...I must have misunderstood. When I read that it was 'testable', I assumed that the theory had been tested and is now a 'law'.

They can make astronomical observations which are repeatable. I forgot am too lazy to look up details but there is "doppler shift" and some other stuff. Interesting reading but I'm not currently interested in the details. Easy to obtain them since Omen provided links.

It is simular with evolution. You can look for all kinds of data and predict what it will show, even tho it all happened before hand.

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

Well, if that's all it takes, then everybody's right. The Big Bang theory is not 'testable'. We can't 'test' it. We can 'theorize' how it may have happened based on astronomical trends we observe today...but that's far from 'testable'. Hence, it's still a theory.

Well, if that's all it takes, then everybody's right. The Big Bang theory is not 'testable'. We can't 'test' it. We can 'theorize' how it may have happened based on astronomical trends we observe today...but that's far from 'testable'. Hence, it's still a theory.

Who said it was not a theory? Its called big bang theory is it not.

Anyway, you seem to be confused in your idea what testable means. The basic idea of a testable hypothesis is that you can make repeatable experiments based on a hypothesis, which allow you to make predictions. It does NOT matter that you cannot repeat the original big bang. We are still seeing events that occured billions of years ago.

Making predictions or falsifying results does NOT necessarily imply you have to repeat evolution or the big bang!!! Scientist still manage to make other predictions that they can verify. Science is quite facinating, if you are interested to learn the details.

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

I have heard of many theories behind the big bang, some involving an inclusion of a point, a singularity.A singularity is not technically "nothing" is it?I just find it difficult to imagine, A singularity, gaining its Dimensional shape.

I have also heard of "Colliding Universe's"And that that could have been the start to the "Big Bang"This can be visualised by asserting that our universe and others are sheets of "space-time" floating through a higher dimensional universe.When two of these membranes collided, the "Big Bang" was started.There are a number of problems I have with this.- If the universe, at the point of collision, was nothing, or had no dimensional value, then what was the "collision"?- Space-time is conceived as a 2dimensional membrane, (forgetting it's contents as 4-dimensional).If 2 completely width-less objects collide, the point of the collision would be a point, a singularity, how could you measure effectively in the mesh of this outer-dimensional universe, where about the collision took place?

Yet I am not a genius, maybe there are a few who can hazard a few guesses *hint*

Take a piece of paper and draw a dot in the middle. This dot has no spatial dimension. No left, right, up or down. Now drawn another dot an inch or so away from the first. This dot too has no dimension, but if we draw a line between the dots we have created a 1-dimensional space. Let's create the second dimension by drawing two legs and two arms to create Freddy Flatlander.

Freddy Flatlander lives in a 2D world. Freddy attempting to view our world would only see slices of that world. Freddy would see a ball moving through his 2D world as an expanding and then collapsing circle. Now let's add a 3rd dimension.

Instead of thinking of the world we live in as having length, breadth, and width, let's visualize this by folding Freddy's 2D world down the middle to make a tube. As Freddy walks along his world his wife Francis Flatlander suddenly sees Freddy pop from one place to another as he crosses the point where the two ends of his 2D world meet. What we have done is fold the 2D world into the 3rd dimension. Francis saw Freddy do the impossible. Suddenly appear in a place he wasn't before. We will use this to visualize higher dimensions. Our 3D world is a 2D world folded through an extra dimension. Keeping this in mind, let's move onto the 4th dimension, what we call time.

We see the world in 3D. It has length, breadth, and width. The dimension above us we see as time, or duration. Think of your earliest memory. This is a point in the 4th dimension. A line connects the current you to the past you as seen in this dimension. Just as Freddy Flatlander could only see the 3D us as cross sections in his world, we see ourselves as a single cross section in this 4D world. Franky 4D, a being who sees in 4D sees us as a worm that starts out as an embryo and snakes through our childhood all the way to our death. We are completely unaware of our motion through this 4D space. We are aware of the passage of time, but do not see it as an extra dimension. With me so far?

Let's take a thin strip of our 2D paper, Freddy's world, twist it, and then join the ends together. If we draw a line down the length of the paper we will see Freddy move through a 3D world. Freddy has traveled on both sides of the paper only to end up in the place where he started. Freddy thought he was traveling in a straight line. In reality, Freddy was twisting through the 3rd dimension. We will use this concept to imagine the 5th dimension.

Our life is a straight line through the 4th dimension. Our straight line in the 4th dimension actually twists and turns in the 5th dimension. In this 5 dimensional world there are an infinite number of paths we could take in our life. Frank 5D can see all of the possibilities of our lives just like we, as 3D creatures can see all of the possible paths of Freddy's 2D world.

We can keep going threw these 4 steps to imagine yet more dimensions if we choose. Let's answer your question though.

How do we measure something in the 4th dimension when we only know how to make 3D objects? We can do this by measuring a single point in the 4th dimension as what we call time. We record these observations in our 3D world. In this way we conceive of history as a connected series of points through the 4th dimension. Just as Freddy has no idea his world is sitting on your desk, we have no idea where we are in the 4th dimension. Unless we figure out how to intentionally fold our 3D world into the 4th dimension, we will never know where we are.

Understand?

This concept took me several weeks to figure out. I probably still don't get it.

« Last Edit: August 25, 2008, 01:11:15 AM by Cycle4Fun »

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How do you define soul?"A baseless assertion by simple-minded, superstitious individuals" -Starstuff

Well, if that's all it takes, then everybody's right. The Big Bang theory is not 'testable'. We can't 'test' it. We can 'theorize' how it may have happened based on astronomical trends we observe today...but that's far from 'testable'. Hence, it's still a theory.

Who said it was not a theory? Its called big bang theory is it not.

Anyway, you seem to be confused in your idea what testable means. The basic idea of a testable hypothesis is that you can make repeatable experiments based on a hypothesis, which allow you to make predictions. It does NOT matter that you cannot repeat the original big bang. We are still seeing events that occured billions of years ago.

Making predictions or falsifying results does NOT necessarily imply you have to repeat evolution or the big bang!!! Scientist still manage to make other predictions that they can verify. Science is quite facinating, if you are interested to learn the details.

What you're saying, then, is that scientists can not test the Big Bang. They can test things that they think may contribute or result from the Big Bang, but they can't test the Bang itself. Again, this is why it remains a theory. Something becomes a Law (fact) when it is testable. Can we test the law of gravity? Yes. Can we test the theory of relativity? No. We can test things that we expected to be a part of relativity, but we can not test relativity itself--thus, it remains a theory. We can do the math, we can write out the equation, but it remains a theory because it is not testable.

The Big Bang is a theory, or hypothesis. It's based on a collection of facts and observations. We test these facts and observations and determine that the Big Bang is a plausible explanation. But, the Big Bang itself is not testable. If it were, it would not be a theory. And that's my point. It's a theory because it can not be proven. It can not be proven because it is nothing more than an idea based on a handful of facts.

Well, if that's all it takes, then everybody's right. The Big Bang theory is not 'testable'. We can't 'test' it. We can 'theorize' how it may have happened based on astronomical trends we observe today...but that's far from 'testable'. Hence, it's still a theory.

Here again we see the complete misunderstanding of science and the "just a theory" approach. A scientific theory does not equal a theory in common language. A theory in common usage is a hypothesis in science. A theory is the highest level any idea in science can obtain.

A hypothesis is a testable, logical guess. A law is a statement of invariant relationships such as F=MA. A theory explains observations and laws. In order for something to become a theory in science, it must explain observations and laws.

Scientists rejected the big bang in favor of a non-expanding universe until observations were made that could not be explained, except by an expanding universe called "the big bang." This hypothesis needed more evidence before scientists accepted the theory. The big bang wasn't accepted until two men working for Bell Labs discovered the cosmic back ground radiation completely by accident. This radiation is all around us as we would expect. The radiation is also of the exact frequency (temperature/energy) predicted by the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is very testable. I encourage you to learn more science. The universe is far more beautiful than you imagine.

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How do you define soul?"A baseless assertion by simple-minded, superstitious individuals" -Starstuff

What you're saying, then, is that scientists can not test the Big Bang. They can test things that they think may contribute or result from the Big Bang, but they can't test the Bang itself. Again, this is why it remains a theory. Something becomes a Law (fact) when it is testable. Can we test the law of gravity? Yes. Can we test the theory of relativity? No. We can test things that we expected to be a part of relativity, but we can not test relativity itself--thus, it remains a theory. We can do the math, we can write out the equation, but it remains a theory because it is not testable.

The Big Bang is a theory, or hypothesis. It's based on a collection of facts and observations. We test these facts and observations and determine that the Big Bang is a plausible explanation. But, the Big Bang itself is not testable. If it were, it would not be a theory. And that's my point. It's a theory because it can not be proven. It can not be proven because it is nothing more than an idea based on a handful of facts.

Yes, we can test the Big Bang based on what we predict. Yes, we have tested the theory of relativity. That's why it's a theory. They have been proven. New observations can lead us to discard this theory as an insufficient model of the universe, just like we have discarded Newton's laws as a model (though still useful).

A law is not a fact. A law is a repeatable relationship between things such as E=mc2. Gravity, is a theory. The theory of gravity is distinct from the law of gravity. The law of gravity allows us to predict how two objects fall towards each other. The theory of gravity explains the law and observations.

Understand?

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How do you define soul?"A baseless assertion by simple-minded, superstitious individuals" -Starstuff

What you're saying, then, is that scientists can not test the Big Bang.

I have to be careful, I'm not a physicist but yes, we can agree that scientists are NOT making their own big bang.

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They can test things that they think may contribute or result from the Big Bang, but they can't test the Bang itself. Again, this is why it remains a theory. Something becomes a Law (fact) when it is testable.

Be carefull here. You are confusing testable with directly observable. For the record, "laws" are still "theories". Typcially a law is simpler than a theory and thus considered more "obvious" but they are philosophically the same thing. Newton's laws survived for 300 years before they were refined!!! The indirect tests that the big bang happened are AS valid as the experiment of throwing an apple in front of the air and seeing if it comes back on the ground.

Lets get our terminology straight:The experiment (test) is throw apple in the air at a certain velocity and direction. The theory: newton's laws allows you to predict what will happen; i.e., the apple will follow a certain path and end up on a certain place on the ground.

You observation (fact) is the path the apple follows and the location where it lands.

If your apple falls somewhere different, that invalidates your theories. Now in that example, we have several refinements, air resistance, measurement error, etc.

In the case of the big bang, your test is to observe light from several stars and do things with said light, observe its color ect. Your theory is a rather elabortate theory called the big bang. Based on that, you make predictions about what will happen. If they don't happen, your big bang theory was wrong!!!

The fact you did not make the big bang happen again is irrevalavent. Your big bang is testable!!!

Now again, remember, I am not a physicist. I am not going to tell you objectively how many experiments have been constructed to establish the big bang. Obviously there are lots. The point is if those experiments did not work, the big bang would be proven wrong.

No, of course, you see a flaw here. There may be more than one explanation for a given result. Science is inductive. That's why the concept of Ocarm's razor exists. In theory we take the simplest explanation.

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Can we test the theory of relativity? No. We can test things that we expected to be a part of relativity, but we can not test relativity itself--thus, it remains a theory.

Our tests for relativity are as valid as those for Newton's laws or gravity. And yes, we can test it. Again, you've been taught by somebody without a science background.

Gravity is STILL a theory. ;-).

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We can do the math, we can write out the equation, but it remains a theory because it is not testable.

Ummm, no!!!

What happened was we made some predictions using newton's laws. The results were WRONG. Relativity theory explaned those better.

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The Big Bang is a theory, or hypothesis. It's based on a collection of facts and observations. We test these facts and observations and determine that the Big Bang is a plausible explanation. But, the Big Bang itself is not testable. If it were, it would not be a theory. And that's my point. It's a theory because it can not be proven. It can not be proven because it is nothing more than an idea based on a handful of facts.

What you're saying, then, is that scientists can not test the Big Bang. They can test things that they think may contribute or result from the Big Bang, but they can't test the Bang itself. Again, this is why it remains a theory. Something becomes a Law (fact) when it is testable. Can we test the law of gravity? Yes. Can we test the theory of relativity? No. We can test things that we expected to be a part of relativity, but we can not test relativity itself--thus, it remains a theory. We can do the math, we can write out the equation, but it remains a theory because it is not testable.

The Big Bang is a theory, or hypothesis. It's based on a collection of facts and observations. We test these facts and observations and determine that the Big Bang is a plausible explanation. But, the Big Bang itself is not testable. If it were, it would not be a theory. And that's my point. It's a theory because it can not be proven. It can not be proven because it is nothing more than an idea based on a handful of facts.

Yes, we can test the Big Bang based on what we predict. Yes, we have tested the theory of relativity. That's why it's a theory. They have been proven. New observations can lead us to discard this theory as an insufficient model of the universe, just like we have discarded Newton's laws as a model (though still useful).

A law is not a fact. A law is a repeatable relationship between things such as E=mc2. Gravity, is a theory. The theory of gravity is distinct from the law of gravity. The law of gravity allows us to predict how two objects fall towards each other. The theory of gravity explains the law and observations.

Understand?

Clearly he understands, his definitions are just plain wrong.

« Last Edit: August 24, 2008, 11:48:16 PM by rickymooston »

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

All theists NEED to know, is that it's unknown, at this time. No reason to make s**t up.

Curious that such a simple message keeps falling on deaf ears...what are they afraid to lose?

I find it quite interesting that we think exactly the same thing of atheists.

It can be reasonably argued, both philosophically and scientifically, that the universe and time had a beginning sometime in the finite past. Since something cannot come out of nothing it can also be reasonably argued that there is a transcendent cause beyond space and time which brought the universe into being.

The real cop-out is saying "uh...it's unknown, at this time, and that's ALL anyone NEEDS to know" simply because one refuses to consider an alternative that does not fit one's preconceptions of the existence of God.

What are you afraid of finding out?

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"..allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause." (David Hume)

It can be reasonably argued, both philosophically and scientifically, that the universe and time had a beginning sometime in the finite past. Since something cannot come out of nothing it can also be reasonably argued that there is a transcendent cause beyond space and time which brought the universe into being.

It can be philosophically be argued that either something "ALWAYS" existed in some sense, or all of a sudden "something" came out of "nothing". As Dawkins says, the trascendal being himself begs the question, who created the creator. The big bang theory as Omen says, only deals with what we can prove; i.e., that there was this instant where all the matter and energy was in one place. Before that, we have no CLUE what happened and we cannot know.

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The real cop-out is saying "uh...it's unknown, at this time, and that's ALL anyone NEEDS to know" simply because one refuses to consider an alternative that does not fit one's preconceptions of the existence of God. What are you afraid of finding out?

The real point that the atheist says honestly, is "we don't know" and we "cannot know". Posulating a "transdendal being" is nothing more than a guess. You only "know" because you have faith. It is NOT a question of "fear of finding out" but a question of making random guesses about things we have no means of verifying.

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

I have heard of many theories behind the big bang, some involving an inclusion of a point, a singularity.A singularity is not technically "nothing" is it?I just find it difficult to imagine, A singularity, gaining its Dimensional shape.

I have also heard of "Colliding Universe's"And that that could have been the start to the "Big Bang"This can be visualised by asserting that our universe and others are sheets of "space-time" floating through a higher dimensional universe.When two of these membranes collided, the "Big Bang" was started.There are a number of problems I have with this.- If the universe, at the point of collision, was nothing, or had no dimensional value, then what was the "collision"?- Space-time is conceived as a 2dimensional membrane, (forgetting it's contents as 4-dimensional).If 2 completely width-less objects collide, the point of the collision would be a point, a singularity, how could you measure effectively in the mesh of this outer-dimensional universe, where about the collision took place?

Yet I am not a genius, maybe there are a few who can hazard a few guesses *hint*

Take a piece of paper and draw a dot in the middle. This dot has no spatial dimension. No left, right, up or down. Now drawn another dot an inch or so away from the first. This dot too has no dimension, but if we draw a line between the dots we have created a 1-dimensional space. Let's create the second dimension by drawing two legs and two arms to create Freddy Flatlander.

Freddy Flatlander lives in a 2D world. Freddy attempting to view our world would only see slices of that world. Freddy would see a ball moving through his 2D world as an expanding and then collapsing circle. Now let's add a 3rd dimension.

Instead of thinking of the world we live in as having length, breadth, and width, let's visualize this by folding Freddy's 2D world down the middle to make a tube. As Freddy walks along his world his wife Francis Flatlander suddenly sees Freddy pop from one place to another as he crosses the point where the two ends of his 2D world meet. What we have done is fold the 2D world into the 3rd dimension. Francis saw Freddy do the impossible. Suddenly appear in a place he wasn't before. We will use this to visualize higher dimensions. Our 3D world is a 2D world folded through an extra dimension. Keeping this in mind, let's move onto the 4th dimension, what we call time.

We see the world in 3D. It has length, breadth, and width. The dimension above us we see as time, or duration. Think of your earliest memory. This is a point in the 4th dimension. A line connects the current you to the past you as seen in this dimension. Just as Freddy Flatlander could only see the 3D us as cross sections in his world, we see ourselves as a single cross section in this 4D world. Franky 4D, a being who sees in 4D sees us as a worm that starts out as an embryo and snakes through our childhood all the way to our death. We are completely unaware of our motion through this 4D space. We are aware of the passage of time, but do not see it as an extra dimension. With me so far?

Let's take a thin strip of our 2D paper, Freddy's world, twist it, and then join the ends together. If we draw a line down the length of the paper we will see Freddy move through a 3D world. Freddy has traveled on both sides of the paper only to end up in the place where he started. Freddy thought he was traveling in a straight line. In reality, Freddy was twisting through the 3rd dimension. We will use this concept to imagine the 5th dimension.

Our life is a straight line through the 4th dimension. Our straight line in the 4th dimension actually twists and turns in the 5th dimension. In this 5 dimensional world there are an infinite number of paths we could take in our life. Frank 5D can see all of the possibilities of our lives just like we, as 3D creatures can see all of the possible paths of Freddy's 2D world.

We can keep going threw these 4 steps to imagine yet more dimensions if we choose. Let's answer your question though.

How do we measure something in the 4th dimension when we only know how to make 3D objects? We can do this by measuring a single point in the 4th dimension as what we call time. We record these observations in our 3D world. In this way we conceive of history as a connected series of points through the 4th dimension. Just as Freddy has no idea his world is sitting on your desk, we have no idea where we are in the 4th dimension. Unless we figure out how to intentionally fold our 3D world into the 4th dimension, we will never know where we are.

Understand?

This concept took me several weeks to figure out. I probably still don't get it.

I understand it all anyway, it wasn't exactly what I was asking, I mustn't have been too clear.I mean ... In our world, when two things collide, as they have width, there is a definite collision point, but if two width-less membranes collide, the point in which they collide, is a singularity, which is very hard to define.If 2 width-less membranes collide with eachother in outer-dimensional space, they would have to touch, and as they cannot collide at the point of a singularity (with no dimensions, how can it be considered a collision?), Is there a collision at all?Can there be a collision?Maybe there are three main objects in this equation, maybe our universe was created from this singularity when 2 Membranes collided, a 3rd space-time mesh was created, amongst the other 2.Most other theories suggest that it is one of the 2 universe's which would be ours.If my theory be the case, where did the other universe's come from?where did their predecessors come from?Which was the first universe?How was that made?Am I digressing way too much?We'll never know ...

question is formed from what? what existed to form If it wasn't this universe, when did it start either time is eternal or this formed out of nothing at some point ,, inescapable conclusion

Our claims of knowing stop the second we have no information to draw from which to make conclusions for, beyond that we can obviously say 'we do not know'. It also does not follow that it 'formed out of nothing' at some point because that in itself presumes to know what one has no working knowledge of.

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Except, the big bang theory is an actual testable and falsifiable hypothesis ( before it became scientific 'theory' ).

Can you explain how this has been done?

It is a hypothetical model that can be used to predict what scientific facts we observe in the present. Where those observations do not match, we have a model that cannot predict the observed state of the universe. The big bang theory has run into problems in the past as science finds and observes new information which become scientific facts. New models have to be adapted in order to see if they are better predictors of the observed conclusion. Those observed facts also include the manner in which we can use 'telescopes' to see 'back in time' to the state of the universe previously.

We also conduct experiments in high energy physics that demonstrate conditions that would have been present at the time of the big bang.

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

I find it quite interesting that we think exactly the same thing of atheists.

It can be reasonably argued, both philosophically and scientifically, that the universe and time had a beginning sometime in the finite past. Since something cannot come out of nothing it can also be reasonably argued that there is a transcendent cause beyond space and time which brought the universe into being.

The real cop-out is saying "uh...it's unknown, at this time, and that's ALL anyone NEEDS to know" simply because one refuses to consider an alternative that does not fit one's preconceptions of the existence of God.

What are you afraid of finding out?

+N

Wrong, the cop out is presuming to know something is there that one has to presume upon circular terms in the first place. Any 'first cause argument' is an excellent argument for a 'first cause', but a practically non-existent argument for any kind of 'god'. Infact, the god(s) in the typical 'first cause' argument is simply presumed without explanation and by far always assigned the identity of whatever religion that person believes in.

I might as well presume a toaster and call it bob, with the same amount of logic used to call it a god and yawheh, allah, or a pantheon of deities. It is never a cop out to say one does not know when one cannot know and it is pure arrogance to claim of it 'another' as their sole position when you immediately violate your own premises of 'something coming from nothing' in the case of god.

« Last Edit: August 25, 2008, 07:14:20 AM by Omen »

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

...We also conduct experiments in high energy physics that demonstrate conditions that would have been present at the time of the big bang.

Oh. interesting. That is something I'll have to read up on at one time. The stuff I'd read was more focused on astronimical observations and the application of well known phenoma like the doppler shift etc, ... (moose waves hand since the only real relevant part is that predictions are made that can be verified; i.e., there are many ways to test a theory and scientists will always come up with new ones, modifying or rejecting said theory when results don't agree with experimental findings).

In any case, testing a theory does not necessarily imply one "has" to precisely reproduce the original event. One can use the consequences of the events to make predictions and verify if those are false.

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"i had learn to focus i what i could do rather what i couldn't do", Rick Hansen when asked about getting a disabling spinal cord injury at 15. He continues to raise money for spinal cord research and inspire peoople to "make a difference". He doesnt preach any religion.

...We also conduct experiments in high energy physics that demonstrate conditions that would have been present at the time of the big bang.

Oh. interesting. That is something I'll have to read up on at one time. The stuff I'd read was more focused on astronimical observations and the application of well known phenoma like the doppler shift etc, ... (moose waves hand since the only real relevant part is that predictions are made that can be verified; i.e., there are many ways to test a theory and scientists will always come up with new ones, modifying or rejecting said theory when results don't agree with experimental findings).

In any case, testing a theory does not necessarily imply one "has" to precisely reproduce the original event. One can use the consequences of the events to make predictions and verify if those are false.

CERN, a EU cooperative studying high energy physics is currently building what will be the worlds largest particle accelerator. This accelerator will produce energy high enough to create the theoretical particle, the Higgs Boson.

This particle is the only remaining particle predicted by the standard model of physics that hasn't been found. If it is found it will confirm the standard model. The really exciting part will be if the Higgs Boson isn't found. If we can't find it, it means we have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the universe works.

Yeah Science!

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How do you define soul?"A baseless assertion by simple-minded, superstitious individuals" -Starstuff